U.K. Orders Google To Forget 9 News Articles About The “Right To Be Forgotten”

(frankieleon)

Although Europeans in 28 countries have the option to ask Google to remove Internet search results about themselves under certain conditions, Google is pushing back against a new “right to be forgotten” request — one that seeks to remove nine news articles about the “right to be forgotten” itself from its internet search results.

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered Google to scrub the articles in question from the internet, because they mention a man who previously made a successful “right to be forgotten” request.

See, “the right to be forgotten” rule in the European Union says Google and other search engines have to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about a person if they request they do so. That keeps defamatory statements, arrest records for minor crimes and other information a person might like to keep hidden in their present from coming back to haunt them whenever their name is searched on the Internet.

Though Google complied and took down links related to a man’s conviction for a minor crime committed 10 years ago, ICO says news articles since then about Google doing so have mentioned the man’s name and details about that conviction.

Google declined the request, ICO says, arguing that the articles concern one of its decisions to delist a search result and that they were an essential part of a recent news story relating to a matter of significant public importance.

But ICO deputy commissioner David Smith wrote in a statement that the same “right to be forgotten” rules apply here, just as they did when Google agreed to take down the other web results for the man.

“Google was right, in its original decision, to accept that search results relating to the complainant’s historic conviction were no longer relevant and were having a negative impact on privacy,” Smith says. “It is wrong of them to now refuse to remove newer links that reveal the same details and have the same negative impact.”

Are those “right to be forgotten” stories about individual requests in the public interest? Yes, ICO says, but they shouldn’t show up on a Google search for that person’s name, as that completely defeats the purpose of having the other mentions removed in the first place.

“Let’s be clear,” commissioner Smith wrote. “We understand that links being removed as a result of this court ruling is something that newspapers want to write about. And we understand that people need to be able to find these stories through search engines like Google. But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant’s name.”

In July, a complaint filed here in the U.S. with the Federal Trade Commission by advocacy group Consumer Watchdog argues not just that Google should be honoring “right to be forgotten” requests stateside, but that the company’s refusal to do so is a violation of federal law.